My radio newsletter this week covers an awful lot of closures of radio stations. Goodness. But, some good news, too. james.cridland.net/blog/2026/cl...

Very, very old #HIGNIFY from 1992 with Peter Cook and Douglas Adams. Fascinating how the show has changed since - this is very close to the knuckle with lots of very cutting allegations in it. Peter Cook was quite excellent. Not sure I miss Angus Deayton’s hosting style. youtu.be/8_ieICHDNXA

Live now news: Al Jazeera reporting explosions in Caracas, Venezuela. livenow.news#aljazeera #venezuela

Why is my hot water cylinder making this noise? And please can it stop? Anyone know what’s going on? youtu.be/lHuPPzkvFUU?...

PSA for Australia (especially QLD, NT, SA, WA): You can watch the ABC’s NSW feed in iview, and go to bed up to two hours early tonight. #australia #newyear

Vaguely fun thing I discovered - www.youtube.com/results?sear... This search query to YouTube is a scoped search to *just* search for podcasts. The "sp=EgIIBxgA" bit is the filter you want. If a creator hasn't marked their content as a podcast, it won't appear in this search.

Best get around to reading my email today but not sure I can be bothered

Fun to flick through the 2006 book "Tricks of the Podcasting Masters" by @podcast411.bsky.social and @mightymur.bsky.social . Peppered with fun humour and the whole book remains surprisingly undated. (The screenshots of the websites - which are all over the book - certainly are though!)

Double apostrophe abuse in the new Betty’s Burgers menu. You’d have thought with a name like that, they’d know.

I just think it’s so much cooler and more interesting to try to be the best audio show rather than the shittiest television show

Curious to spot that the BBC’s own “Britbox” streaming service here in Australia doesn’t offer BBC News channel. I mean, you’d have thought… no. It’s free on the BBC website (in Australia) here. But not on the BBC’s own Britbox. www.bbc.com/watch-live-n...

If you’re going to talk about how podcasts became video products you need to at least gesture toward both network TV and ESPN’s mid-day programming. The video podcast isn’t new, it’s just a talk show with worse guests and production values.

Tried the new Spotify mixing tool. It has real promise, but isn't quite ready for primetime yet. One little tweak is all it needs. One little tweak. A full review over here - with audio! And video! james.cridland.net/blog/2025/sp...

Fans of a British accent and talking about AM transmission in too much detail might like to tune into @spencerhowson.bsky.social on ABC Radio Brisbane at 7.40am this morning (in half an hour), or ABC Radio Perth and WA at 6.15am this morning (in an hour).

The future isn’t AM radio in cities. My latest radio newsletter - also includes “you won’t believe what ARN have done this time” james.cridland.net/blog/2025/ar...

Here's an oldie but a goodie #auspol ... www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03...

For a story - looking for people who have had awful/untrue/libellous comments placed on their Apple Podcasts listing, and experiences with Apple support when trying to get them removed. Won’t mention your show and will keep you anonymous. [email protected] Please boost/share.

A new Radioland is out! More AM switchoff - in both Spain and... Perth. Plus, weird laws, and Switzerland decides it'll keep FM for a little while after all. james.cridland.net/blog/2025/am...

The new inductees for the Podcast Hall of Fame have been announced. Excited to see Veronica Belmont in there! She was required listening on Buzz Out Loud. Also, delighted to see not just one but TWO British people - hurray Mark Asquith! podcasthall.com/hall-of-fame/

Wondering what SBS thinks it’s doing www.bbc.com/news/article...

"Australia is banning social media sites for under 16s!" Good, I think. But unfortunately it isn't quite as simple as that. james.cridland.net/blog/2025/au... #auspol #australia #social #youtube #policy #government

I might have spotted something - and perhaps Global's ambitions to grow extend rather further than the United States. At least, here's hoping... james.cridland.net/blog/2025/gl...

I might have spotted something - and perhaps Global's ambitions to grow extend rather further than the United States. At least, here's hoping... james.cridland.net/blog/2025/gl...

Tell me that it’s Christmas in one word.

Among other issues with Zipcar's model in London: Having to negotiate individually with 32 boroughs, some of which charged thousands of pounds per car. Meanwhile, Croydon council outsourced much of their employee car fleet to Zipcar and may be a bit screwed. www.londoncentric.media/p/zipcar-lon...

I've been really enjoying Global 's WSQK. It shows how radio can innovate. So much so, I wrote a blog post gushing all about it this week. (Caution, also mentions Brisbane radio). james.cridland.net/blog/2025/ws...

Google falls over again for radio. Plus - Kyle Sandilands is such a professional he needs a COMPLIANCE TEAM: I link to ARN's job listing. All the fun in another action-packed newsletter from Radioland. james.cridland.net/blog/2025/he...

I flew to Canada this week to go to a Paul McCartney concert and I wrote about it here: open.substack.com/pub/naomiald...

From our recent Annual General Meeting: Covering the windows with ads is prioritising advertisers over passengers. Elsewhere they have ads but leave the windows clear, improving visibility and security.

Closed my Uphold account which had a total of US $10.84 in it (all BAT from Brave). “Why do we have so many data breaches in Australia?”

Adoro a @james.crid.land

Good news for BBC News channel viewers in Australia via www.bbc.com/watch-live-n... - after more than twelve months of the channel being available in this way, the feed we get is now the Asia-Pacific feed, and not the feed for Africa...

I rather like the idea behind some new AI-powered traffic reports on the radio in the UK. Plus ACMA and Kyle&JackieO, the BBC thing, SCA's Heart, the US's iHeart, Canada's Stingray, and plenty more in my Radioland radio trends newsletter this week. james.cridland.net/blog/2025/ti...

According to @usc.edu data reported on @james.crid.land's @podnews.net, 64% of the most popular US podcasts were hosted by men. Such shows are far less diverse than the top movies, TV or music. Worst gender gap? Business & tech shows: men host 92% of 'em! More stats here: podnews.net/update/woefu...

Job: Video Producer, Podcasts at Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Ultimo, Australia #jobs #hiring #mediajobs #podcasting

So, ACMA’s response to Kyle and JackieO has finally been published. Does ARN, the licence-holder, get a fine? Um, no. They get a licence condition that they must follow the already existing rules. That they broke 7 times just this year. Well, that’ll fix it. www.mediaweek.com.au/acma-imposes...

We get BBC News Channel free in the BBC app here in Australia. But it’s a non-standard HTML player in a webview, so you actually can’t full-screen it. So if you like watching the news in a tiny window, you’re good; but otherwise, if you wanted to watch video like any other app, in fullscreen, tough.

It’s always DNS except when it isn’t. A good article explaining how DNS all works, which I am in no way only mentioning here because my brother wrote it. dev.to/dwd/its-alwa...

In some countries radio stations must fill at least two hours a day of their output with "news and current affairs". In others, they want just 90 seconds. And in Australia, one radio company is just letting AI write it. From my Radioland newsletter. james.cridland.net/blog/2025/ne...

Sitting on the deck, minding my own business, and a colourful visitor comes to see what I’m doing. #australia #brisbane

“Good news, everyone” As of this week, the BBC has added catch-up radio, for some of the flagship shows, to the Radio 4 schedule in the international BBC app. This went away in July, though the website has had them for a while. I’ve updated my canonical guide. james.cridland.net/blog/2025/ho...

One that @misener.org might like, but perhaps you will too... if you use @johnspurlock.com 's OP3 podcast analytics solution (it's free), you can do some really powerful things with the analytics it gives you. Let me take you on a journey into... the pivot table. podnews.net/article/op3-...

Quite the impressive logo cropping by the BBC from this LBC footage with @iaindale.bsky.social

A UK podcast I’ve listened to weekly for well over 15 years is literally doing a live show down the road in Brisbane. I am a bit excited.

That was a close one. An auto-generated transcript: "the alleged and proven offences" What they actually said: "the alleged, unproven, offences" #legal

I have done a bad thing

Australia! If you have a @usetrmnl.com (either the official hardware or an old e-ink reader) then you can now get Australian ABC News headlines on it. It's configurable for your state/territory, updates every thirty minutes, and hopefully won't get me into trouble. usetrmnl.com/recipes/74581

Podnews's web/podcast publishing process relies on being able to flush Cloudfront's cache, which is a thing that currently isn't working. So that's nice. Good work, AWS. Today's edition is over here, anyway - with on-page audio. podnews.net/update/trebb...

Surprising, but... the next Tesla Model 3 won't have a radio in it, at all. They're pulling the radio out of the base model completely. A (possible scoop?) for my Radioland newsletter, which also includes the loss of Peter Fegan from 4BC in Brisbane. james.cridland.net/blog/2025/te...